Assets - Wealth

I love loot. My characters tend to turn out the corpses of every hobgoblin they come across. I bring a mule with me to battle so I can carry the chain mail of dead hobgoblins back to town and resell it. However, I'm not collecting coins so I can swim in my money bin. I love the meaning of loot. The meaning of a Magic Item is pretty clear, but what about all those currency and fungible art objects? If it's just a running tally until my character can by the latest "power up" from a designated vendor, where's the added value from the table top experience as opposed to a video game? I'm not just greedy for coin - I'm greedy for the power of the purse!

Lifestyle Expenses

“Drive sports cars, date movie stars, buy things that are not for sale... who knows, Master Wayne? You start pretending to have fun, you might even have a little by accident.” – Alfred, Batman Begins

Different tiers of lifestyles are a fact of life. Some people are waited on hand-and-foot and others are begging in the street. "Meet at the Inn," type adventurers tend to start out counting every copper and pursuing life-threatening escapades for meager bounties. Then at some point that dynamic fades out while PCs are looting dragon hordes and destroying armies of undead. The idea of ditching the rustic tavern scene for something a bit more upscale has come up in Living Greyhawk and Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition but it's always come across as more of a tax than a benefit to me. The number-crunching gets absurd too - an adventurer idling or retiring in style after killing a couple of dragons is untenable due to constant drain while NPC expenses are hand-waved. I replace that paradigm with the idea of a sustainable lifestyle. Peasants, merchants, and sell-swords have the assets to keep up their lifestyle, and so should PCs. If a character has a sufficient Wealth rank his or her sustainable lifestyle automatically increases.

Operating Budget

"Some assets work for money, others believe in a cause. The most effective incentive though is a combination of the two." - Michael Westen, Burn Notice

One the advantages of Wealth is that it makes it easier to generate an income. While other assets provide more concrete models for estates and businesses (and adventure hooks), Wealth levels can be squeezed for a certain baseline of income per week. The part that overruns lifestyle expenses can provide a basic weekly budget for the adventurer out on the town. This might be used to cover a few non-incidental purchases, grease the right palms, or help the struggling poor. These are the kind of expenses that are constrained by a short-term budget, but aren't relevant to carry week-to-week or episode-to-episode. Just know your limits and you shouldn't need to muss up your character sheet.

Capital Expenses

"Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into Hell." - David Xanatos, Gargoyles

These are the one-time expenses I'm the most familiar with in a swords-and-sorcery RPG. You pile up a bunch of GPs and you buy something with them. Most commonly it's a "power-up" like a scroll to scribe into your spell book or a magic sword. From time-to-time it might be a pricey service like a Restoration or Regeneration spell. However, with an Assets system there's a lot more than usual to buy. Money can buy a lot of things - land, buildings, and employees are pretty common. That's the core premise of things ranging from setting up a small shop to a huge castle and sprawling demesne. You could also spread around money to cultivate things like contacts, allies, favors, glory, or even buy a political office. These all represent large, one-time outlays of cash for value you can't easily convert back into coins. In a wealth system you can liquidate one of more ranks of Wealth to finance these sorts of expenses.

Spare Change

"Laws are a tedious business and counting coppers is worse." - Robert Baratheon, A Game of Thrones

There comes a time in every successful adventurer's career where keeping track of the extra silver pieces you tipped to loosen the bartender's tongue just isn't worth it. You want to buy a couple of vials of oil for your lantern? I (the DM) don't want to waste the precious seconds of game time marking down that gold piece. (You're a 9th level Wizard, Harry - why are you even using an oil lantern in the first place?) Rather than micromanage expenses that's are out of scope for your character's assets, certain Wealth ranks provide you the benefit of just waiving these petty expenses away for the rounding errors they've become. Come to think of it, you should probably let the peasant children loot the loose coins from your couch cushions on the holidays.

Rough Tiers - Wealth by Rank

So here is my rough draft of a Wealth tier system for Byzantine Age. Prices are given in Double-Denarius, a silver coin with the equivalent purchasing power of a Gold Piece in the standard D&D setting. I suppose you could even assign a negative value in this Asset to represent squalid poverty or crushing debt of some sort if a character's situation called for it.

• Rank 0: Sustain a Modest Lifestyle indefinitely 
• Rank 1: Ignore expenses less than 1dd (1GP D&D)
• Rank 2: Budget of 10dd/wk
• Rank 3: Sustain a Comfortable Lifestyle indefinitely
• Rank 4: Ignore expanses < 10dd (10GP D&D) 
• Rank 5: Budget of 100dd/wk 
• Rank 6: Sustain a Wealthy Lifestyle indefinitely 
• Rank 7: Ignore expenses < 50dd (50GP D&D) 
• Rank 8: Budget of 500dd/wk 
• Rank 9: Sustain an Aristocratic Lifestyle indefinitely 
• Rank 10: Ignore expanses < 100dd (100GP D&D) 

Assets - Vehicles and Real Estate

Following up on the earlier article: Assets - Rewards Beyond Money and Magic, I wanted to go over a few other example scales I've drafted for our Byzantine Age game. Just keep in mind is that whatever scale and system you come up with, we're just dealing with rough metrics here, not recipes. They help me (the DM) eye-ball the distribution of rewards / spoils among party members as well as how much of a stake each character has in the game world beyond his character stats. Also, each Asset Type has its own scale, don't just assume the "relative bigness" of, say, a Rank 4 Ally translates to the same scale as a Rank 4 Contact or Vehicle. There's nothing wrong with trying it, but mileage will vary based on how combat-heavy, role-play-intensive, political you want your game to be.

Sample Scale - Vehicles

1: Mule / Ox

2: Draft Horse

3: Wagon w/ 2 Horses / Oxen

4: Skiff

5: Charger

6: Barge

7: Caravel / Longship

8: Galleon / Galleas

9: Ship of the Line

10: Airship

Alright, so maybe that scale is complete rubbish or maybe it totally works for your game. Heck, I'm not even sure I want to have Airships in my game. However, the part that matters is how this list came about. I took the "smallest" vehicle (in terms of value) I could bother quantifying and and biggest I was willing to tolerate. Then I started thinking about everything that fell in between and filled in an arbitrary number of data points sorted out. Yes, there's no entry for a row-boat, but is it hard to find an equivalent? Some broad sub-categories start to shake out: things the peasantry has access to, things merchants and knights have, and then things like military vehicles above that. Maybe you want to run a Planescape adventure or something? What does your scale look like if you have a Spelljammer at the top of the chart?

Sample Scale - Real Estate

1: Shack / Cabin

2: Cottage / Apartment

3: House / Workshop

4: Small Farm / Store / Warehouse

5: Large Farm / Mine / Dock

6: Manor

7: Tower

8: Keep

9: Small Castle

10: Castle

So here we go again. The scale is probably rubbish (I didn't even include an entry for a floating sky-fortress that shoots laser beams and roosts a flight of dragons). I started with the most modest thing I could see someone owning as personal property (rather than renting - lots of peasants are merely tenants or serfs). Then I decided a full-sized Castle was probably the largest individual holding I wanted to have on this scale. Controlling a city like say, Ravenna, isn't really covered under Real Estate as much as it would be by Station. The town around a decent castle is probably pushing it already. But this also illustrates that you'll have bleed-over and that's perfectly fine. If you own your own manor you're part of the landed class, so a reward of a manor inside the Empire itself is going to have to be go with some sort of minor Baron title at the very least. Also, instead of paying some ridiculous fee to operate a holding my players are going to be responsible with finding staff and making their holdings productive. The idea of needing to raid dragon hordes every few months just to pay for your "owning a castle" habit is a sign things have swerved horribly off-course.

Assets - Rewards Beyond Money and Magic

Personally, I've always been the kind of player who could never be satisfied with Experience Points, Gold Pieces, and Magic Items. A large part of the charm to systems like World of Darkness is that it allows you to spend points for things beyond super-powers: influence, allies, access to information - whatever they lack in exoticism they make up for in sheer utility. Even more critically, they are incentives for characters to be immersed or invested in the game world beyond wherever they happen to be standing at the time. I got my first taste of this in d20 game hording boons and favors from Living Greyhawk modules and the introduction of Icons in the 13th Age game setting and Factions in the Fifth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons revisited the idea. So in Byzantine Age, I really wanted to bring all these different kinds of rewards together into a general category called Assets.

Below are my Asset Types, and yes the number ten was completely arbitrary. There's no pressing need to even bother quantifying this stuff in many games, but some categories and examples helps reassure my players that are otherwise worried about overreaching. These kind of things are meant to be a bit wibbly-wobbly, but useful.

Magical Resources: Permanent Magic Items, Supernatural Abilities, Divine Boons
Vehicles: Warhorse, Carriage, Pirate Ship, Pegasus
Wealth: Access to Adventuring Gear, Lifestyle Expenses, Fungible Investments
Real Estate: Workshop, Farm, Tower, Manor
Servants: Slaves, Employees, Lackeys, Minions
Contacts: Access to information, people, markets, etc. if you make it worth their while
Allies: Go out of their way to provide aid, though the resources and dedication will vary
Favors: Boons, Debts, Blackmail
Glory: A relative measure of personal fame (or infamy)
Station: Earl, Archbishop, Guild Officer, General

I've also fallen into the habit of sticking some sort of a number value on these things - less of a price-tag and more a squishy scale of relative "bigness." Some categories need more than one number; Allies, Contacts, and Favors are usually dealt with individually (each alliance or favor rated by itself), while wealth is just a single lump of everything you have available (coins, art objects, etc.). Some categories are easier to peg than others. Take Station, for example. Here's a scale of station for our Byzantine Age game. While a character might have one rating relative to the Empire, it doesn't mean the same thing on the Germanic side of the Danube or in the sands of Persia.

-4: Proscribed: Exile
-3: Hunted: Wanted Criminal
-2: Outsider: Barbarian
-1: Bondage: Slave
 0: Servitude: Serf
 1: Citizenship: Commoner
 2: Taxpayer: Artisan, Yeoman
 3: Privileged: Soldier, Steward, Man-at-Arms, Priest, Mayor, Guild Member
 4: Peer: Landless Nobility, Knight Errant, Military or Guild Officer
 5: Minor Lord: Baron, Lieutenant, Guildmaster, Bishop
 6: Lord: Earl / Count, Commander, Patrician, Archbishop
 7: Major Lord: Duke, General, Doge, Cardinal
 8: Sovereign: King, Warlord, Consul, High Priest
 9: Overlord: Emperor

I actively encourage these kinds of assets to bleed over into various categories and interact with one another. A simple example would be starting a self-sustaining business. One would typically convert some Wealth into the purchase of some Real Estate (in this case a tavern) and put in the effort of finding a reliable sort of Servant to manage the establishment. Once the business is up and running it should provide the owning character with a fair bit of income as well as be a source of information, contacts, and fame.

It also provides the Dungeon Master with a variety of potential encounters and hooks. Do the PCs put in the effort to find the right person for the job? That could be a side-quest unto itself. If they don't put in the effort, they may have to deal with issues of mismanagement like incompetence or embezzlement. Have the PCs created enemies or rivalries that could come home to roost? Such events should be doorways to opportunity though, rather than turn their assets into a poisoned prize. That defeats the entire purpose of the exercise.

Interviewer: Well, can you... blow up the world?
The Tick: Egad. I hope not. That's where I keep all my stuff.

World Setting - Alterna Historia I

Campaign World: Custom Terra with fantasy fictionalize history

Campaign Setting: The Province of Sicily, Roman Empire; 33rd year of the Glorious reign of Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus Augustus in Constantinople; 560 A.D.

Campaign Mechanics:

    Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition is the primary mechanical base for the campaign. The character attributes, class features, ability checks, and combat mechanics are played directly out of the Player’s Handbook. Pretty much everything else is taken from the Archmage Engine system or the 13th Age Rulebook. Instead of selecting a background from the PHB each player invents a single Background in the 13th Age style. when one would normally interject their background points into a check under the Archmage Engine, instead the character gets to add their proficiency bonus to the check. The Escalation Die mechanic is used in combat. The Montage Technique is used for travel and non-combat group challenges as appropriate. Stunts are also handled under the 13th Age style. Icon Points are introduced to player characters over their first 3 levels, one at each level - preferably over the course of play.

Setting Icons:

    Each Icon is represented not only be a figurehead, but also by a particular organization. The icon relationship represent any relationship that would have sway over the greater part of an organization. Each organization is also associated with a powerful Locus - a physical area where they hold the greatest sway and the fortunes of which are directly reflected upon the organization. Many of these have obvious analogs to familiar faces in the default 13th Age setting - and rightly so. The Icons of the 13th Age were crafted to fill some of the most common, yet flexible NPC pillars the commonly occur in fantasy game settings and literature. There’s no reason to discard an old trope out of hand.

ICON LIST:

Imperator - Constantinople

Praefectus Oriens - Antioch

Archemagos - Alexandria

Pontifex Maximus - Rome

Grey Weaver - Syracuse

High Thane - Khazad

Rose Prince - Hyboria

Ironscales - Germania

Sassanid Emperor - Ctesiphon

Brazen Khan - Sarmatia

Winter King - Utgard

Eternal Pharaoh - Thebes